


I'll Let Go if You'll Catch Me

by ani_bester



Category: Captain America, Captain America (Comics), Marvel, Marvel 616
Genre: Community: queer_fest, Gen, M/M, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-06
Updated: 2011-08-06
Packaged: 2017-10-22 06:56:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/235142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ani_bester/pseuds/ani_bester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Becomes old assumptions are turned on their head, and with the new knowledge comes new fears about what Karpov might have done to him. Luckily Steve is there to lend an ear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll Let Go if You'll Catch Me

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Bucky Barnes, You can't brainwash someone's sexuality away. But Karpov tried his best  
> Warnings:Bigoted opinions on queerness, self-loathing, opening scene shows aversion therapy and an attempt to "cure" a character from being queer.

_When I was in the military they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one._ ~Epitaph of Leonard P. Matlovich,

 

Cold. An aching cold burrowed its way past the blackness and seeped into his bones, causing them to ache as though they were broken. Or perhaps they had been broken.

Something grabbed his hair, wrenching him up as though he were a broken doll. Blinding white light burned through the blackness, revealing a small room of looming metal walls. Disembodied voices demanded he open his eyes.

He obeyed. It was the only option he could conceive of.

In front of him was an image of a young boy with a bright smile and brighter blue eyes. Hundreds of creases crisscrossed the brittle paper and its original color had long since faded into mute browns. None of that did anything to make the image less attractive. The boy’s careless, easy grin invited him closer.

The voices pounded questions into his head as he stared at the photo.

His felt his stomach churn, pushing bile up into his throat. He bit down on his tongue hard enough to draw blood. The truth would hurt. A lie would hurt more.

His arms began to shake as he tried to work the lie into the truth, but in the end he had to answer.

"Yes," he said in a horse voice. "Yes, he is desirable."

The world went white hot with pain, pushing him past what he'd thought he could endure. Then it stopped and his own panting echoed like a roar in the room. A ruthless hand grabbed his face, a thumb and forefinger pushed deep into his cheeks. He found himself forced to look at the photo again; however, this time it shifted, the figure grew before his eyes into a man.

It made no difference.

He pleaded silently for the voices not to ask again. But they did and he could not help himself; he answered the same cringing even before the pain.

But this time it was cut short. A dark-haired girl in a purple lab coat appeared.

"Of course it doesn't work," she said in perfect English. "It's the genes; change the genes, change him."

He blinked and found himself strapped to a table, but somehow looking down as a machine began to take him apart piece by piece like a puzzle.

The girl smiled as she leaned over. Her hair smelled like grass and embalming fluid."We're just going to take out the parts we don't like," she whispered in Russian as she reached for a dial on the machine.

 

Bucky's eyes flew open and for three seconds he thought his heart was going to explode as the urge to figh struggled against his body’s inability to move. Then the last of the sleep paralysis wore off and Bucky pulled his arm to him, knowing even as he did so that it would be intact.

He closed his eyes and concentrated first on his own breathing and then on the sounds of the Avenger’s home that were becoming familiar to him. The whirring of some far off machinery, the clinking of pipes as they moved water through the building. Down the hall, Jessica and Luke talking, awake because of their baby. And of course the heavy breathing that occasionally became a snore.

He rolled over and reached out to touch Toro's hair but the memory of pain stopped him. He bit at his lip, then touched Toro anyway.

"What’s it?" Toro mumbled, raising his head just enough to have a clear look at Bucky. Bucky just smiled at him and Toro smiled back at him before he rested his head on the pillow again. Before the nightstand clock’s second hand had made a full journey, Toro was asleep again.

Toro's size and build still felt wrong, but the familiarity of his heat was a comfort. Bucky remembered when he'd first realized Toro became warmer as he slept, on the outskirts of France, both of them crammed into the far corner of a tent meant for one but holding four, both happy to have the tent at all. The memory of Toro's look of exasperation that he could never fake being asleep pushed away the ghosts long enough for Bucky to smile. He wondered if Ann had ever told Toro about how warm he got while he slept.

But too soon the dream pushed back into his thoughts, nagging at him with details that fluttered away as soon as he tried to grasp at them. One though stayed with him, one that made the implication of the dream worse than normal. He’d always considered only that Karpov might have re-arranged his thoughts and never anything more than that. But the suggestions of genetic changes… it couldn’t be possible.

After a few more moments of lying to himself that he'd fall back to sleep, Bucky rose and slipped out the door, heading for the Avenger Archives.

 

Three hours later, Bucky slumped on the corner couch in the archive room, staring at the collection of files spread out over the black coffee table in disorganized piles. Bucky glared at them as though it was their fault that they had told him what he’d suspected all along. Rubbing his temple, he at fought down the urge to overturn the table. Instead he reached for a beer from the six-pack he’d brought with him.

Grimacing, he wondered if anyone would be awake, or would forgive being woken up, for some sparring. Just before he managed to convince himself to go on his own, Bucky heard the door open. Next, he heard the sure, heavy steps that always meant Steve. He felt his cheek's warm. _Caught drinking in the dark? Barnes could you be any more pathetic._

"You know, Buck, there was this amazing invention, electricity."

Bucky snorted. "Thanks for the intel, Steve. I'll be sure to commit that to memory. Did you come here for a reason or just to pester me?"

"Pestering you isn't a reason? Pestering me always was for you,”

Bucky heard Steve move into the room and went ahead and took one of the beers from the six-pack and put it on the coffee table next to his.

"How'd you know I was here?"

"I was going over some paperwork with Tony, he mentioned someone was in the archive room. When the Winter Soldier files were pulled, I guessed."

Bucky scowled and wondered if Stark had ever heard of "privacy" before. He didn't say anything. It would be a feint and Steve would know it. The couch cushions shifted as Steve sat. Bucky knew Steve was taking in the Avenger case files spread over the table, looking for a common theme in them. Minutes later, he felt the weight of Steve's gaze settle on him. Bucky reached for his beer as he put his best poker face on. The one that always fooled everyone, even Fury, but never Steve.

Saying nothing, Bucky just drink the beer, sip after sip. Occasionally he'd glance at Steve. Sometimes Steve watched him, brows furrowed, probably going over his options. Other times Steve stared at the paperwork. His blues eyes moved back and forth as he read the files despite the distance and the dark.

"If you're considering genetic modifications, Buck," Steve said, "I'd suggest upping your agility, but I hear that sometimes comes with blue fur."

"I'll store that reference under things to ask about later," Buck sighed. "I figured you'd work it out."

Steve picked up the beer and held up, but didn't open it. "The connection between the files was easy, Buck. Even if I can't see them all right now, I know them all. Why you'd pick those particular cases out-"

He stopped and Bucky found himself meeting Steve's concerned gaze.

Bucky reached down and began to stack the folders back together, shrugging off the gaze like an unwanted advance. "I was just checking on something, Steve. You know, trying to make sure there aren't critical knowledge gaps, like the relevance of a blue fur joke."

“At 3:00 am?”

Bucky pressed his lips together and rather than answer, he stacked and then sorted the files with the same violence that he might have shot a person with. As he was placing a file on Ms Marvel behind one on the Brood, Steve reached out and took hold of his wrist.

"Buck…"

Bucky glared at Steve and threw the files back onto the table, watching the work of the last few minutes, undone as the papers slid out and spread across the slick, polished surface.

"It's-" Bucky stopped himself, knowing Steve of all people would honor his concerns and never write them off out of hand.

His words still felt trapped, though. Bucky rubbed his temple and picked up his beer and took another sip. When he'd drained the bottle, he set it on the coffee table and stared it at a few moments.

"Some of the Young Avengers were jabbering on about Toro and how he married a gal –I promise this is relevant."

Steve nodded and drank from his own beer, while reaching down to pull another out for Bucky.

"I got worked up -in that way that he hates, so, thank God, he wasn’t there – and defended him." Bucky took the beer after Steve had unscrewed the top. "What I said though," Bucky rubbed the back of his neck still remembering Kate's fiery look. "Well my comment earned me a lecture from Kate about how sexuality is genetic, it isn’t a choice."

Bucky felt Steve give him a sympathy pat on the back.

"Nice heads up there, by the way on all of that. I should list out all my remaining notions about everything and you, Sam, and Nat can tell me which ones are out dated and why. Spare me from any further teenage wrath."

Steve grinned, but it was that uncomfortable half grin he used when something bothered him. "Sorry, pal,"

Encouraged by the fourth beer he'd drunk, he leaned back against the couch, but he couldn't quite relax." What she said though, it got me thinking, though," Bucky murmured. "If it's genetic then… Steve, back during WWII, I was a… I mean I...," Bucky ran through his hand through his hair and then took a long drink of beer. He slammed the bottle onto the table then ran his fingers through his hair again. "Sorry,” he mumbled, looking at his hands. “Sometimes it's just hard to shake the past."

Steve squeezed his shoulder, "I know."

"Did you read the Winter Soldier files?" Bucky whispered.

Steve nodded, "Every word." His voice had become strained and he squeezed Bucky's shoulder again.

"He wanted me destroyed, Steve. Everything that made me who I had been he wanted gone, erased. He didn't even care if it made any sense. He wanted to tell me what to think, what to feel, what to like…. Who to like. He-" Bucky slammed his fist down on the armrest, stopping himself. "I thought it was all in my head, but if who I love is genetic, then it's not, then he changed _me_." Bucky hadn't realized his hands had begun to shake until he felt Steve's hands on top of his own.

Bucky tried to give Steve a cocky-what-does-it-matter smile, but he knew he failed. "It's just, God, Steve, it was bad enough having my brain re-wired without thinking he had me re-wired. I told myself it was what Toro like to call "Buck Rogers nonsense," but-" Bucky shifted to the files covering the coffee table. "It's not, is it? Hell, genetic manipulation is pretty common, so how do I-how can I know?" Bucky looked to Steve, expecting at best the silent embraces they'd shared when he'd asked impossible questions as though Steve could solve anything. But instead Steve had leaned forward, his eyes focused on the files, but not really seeing them.

"Do you remember what I said with the cosmic cube?" Steve asked.

Buck became very still as he forced himself to remember what the Winter Soldier had heard. "Remember who you are," he whispered.

From the corner of his eye, Bucky saw Steve nod. "Remember, not revert to, or change back to, or undo what was done-" Steve’s eyes became distant for a moment. "Though if I'd said that-"

"You'd have re-written history, and someone, probably Fury, would have changed it back." Bucky finished with sad smile. "He'd never think things changed for the better."

"So I tell myself," Steve said in the smallest voice Bucky had ever heard him use.

He coughed, then patted Bucky on the back. "The point is, I said remember, which means whatever Karpov did, or tried to do, you’re were right originally, it was all mental re-working and over-riding and burying."

"You but, what Kate said-"

"Overlooked the difference between what someone is and how someone behaves." Steve looked at Bucky and raised an eyebrow. "Unless you think you somehow changed your own DNA at times."

Bucky snorted, remembering the Victory Girls he’d wound up in bed with any chance he could get, as though that would change something. He ran his fingers through his hair again and felt some of it get stuck standing what he guessed was straight up. "I need a shower," he muttered.

"Bucky," Steve said with a shake of his head.

Bucky gave Steve a ghost of his old boyhood smile. "Damn, you never did let me derail these things. Ok, fine, it’s just, when you put it like all that, I feel silly, worrying like I had. But, shit, Steve, everything is fine and I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, and trying to sort it all." Bucky clenched his fists and shut his eyes. "Christ, I couldn’t even deal with this one thing when it was the only part I thought was fucked up about myself."

Almost before he'd finished speaking, Bucky found himself pulled into an actual hug. "I know, everyone still loves me, blah blah blah."

Steve hugged him tighter.

"Thanks," Bucky whispered. Usually, during the war, he had pushed out of Steve's hugs, worried about what it would look like or that others would think him weak. But other times -other times- it really hadn't mattered to him. He'd just needed the damn hug.

And this was one of those times.

Bucky sighed and decided he'd consider everything that could mean, everything he'd never considered before, on another night.


End file.
